Healthcare utilisation and mortality in people with osteoarthritis in the UK: findings from a national primary care database

Background The burden of osteoarthritis (OA) in UK primary care has not been investigated thoroughly. Aim To estimate healthcare use and mortality in people with OA (overall and joint specific). Design and setting A matched cohort study of adults with an incident diagnosis of OA in primary care were selected for the study using UK national Clinical Practice Research Datalink (CPRD) electronic records. Method Healthcare utilisation was measured as the annual average number of primary care consultations and admissions to hospital after the index date for any cause and all-cause mortality data in 221 807 people with OA and an equal number of controls (with no OA diagnosis) who were matched to the case patients by age (standard deviation 2 years), sex, practice, and year of registration. The associations between OA and healthcare utilisation and all-cause mortality were estimated using multinomial logistic regression and Cox regression, respectively, adjusting for covariates. Results The mean age of the study population was 61 years and 58% were female. In the OA group, the median number of primary care consultations per year after the index date was 10.91 compared with 9.43 in the non-OA control group (P= 0.001) OA was associated with an increased risk of GP consultation and admission to hospital. The adjusted hazard ratio for all-cause mortality was 1.89 (95% confidence interval [CI] = 1.85 to 1.93) for any OA, 2.09 (95% CI = 2.01 to 2.19) for knee OA, 2.08 (95% CI = 1.95 to 2.21) for hip OA, and 1.80 (95% CI = 1.58 to 2.06) for wrist/hand OA, compared with the respective non-OA control group. Conclusion People with OA had increased rates of GP consultations, admissions to hospital, and all-cause mortality that varied across joint sites.